Two Halves of the Rambam Together

I was privileged to attend tonight the opening of a special display of a Mishneh Torah, the classic Halachic codex of the Rambam, commissioned and completed ca. 1457 in northern Italy and illustrated in the Renaissance style of the time. 

It was at the Israel Museum in the presence of the Rishon Letzion Yitzchak Yosef, the Apostolic Nuncio in Israel Archbishop Guiseppe Lazzarotto, Msgr. Cesare Pasini, the Vatican's Prefect of its Biblioteca Apostolica with a nice talk by Prof. Moshee Halbertal who spoke of the Rambam's approach that to be religious, one must learn to love, which is beyond fearful respect and can only be achieved through knowing God which, in turn, can only be gained by learning of his works in nature.

The two halves of the volume were separated some two centuries ago and ended up in the Vatican and in Germany and that second Jewish-held half was only recently located and purchased by the Israel Museum jointly with New York's Metropolitan Museum.

The two halves

The Nuncio

and also with James Synder, Museum Director (red tie)

The attendees

The Chief Rabbi and the Nuncio

James Snyder speaking

P.S.  The title of the evening was a play on words - יד ביד - which is 'Hand in Hand' - but refers to the fact that the Rambam's work contained 14 sections which, in gammatria is יד, I think was lost to many of those who attended.

^





























i

To Who Was President Rivlin Referring?

He couldn't be referring to President Rivlin here, could he?

I have nothing but regret for the discordant voices that we heard this morning, supporting the separation between Jews and Arabs on the basis of ideas that have no place being heard or said.  Such statements go against the very foundations of the State of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state.  Such statements cause great damage to the State of Israel, and to the settlement movement.  It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side."

Oh,

Sorry.

That was President Rivlin.

(Communicated by the President's Spokesperson)
Wednesday 20 May 2015 / 2 Sivan 5775

President Rivlin's Statements on This Morning's Events

"This morning, (Wednesday May 20th), as we witnessed the terror attack in Jerusalem we received a painful reminder of the complex security situation Israel's faces and the price we pay for our basic principles. We must confront terrorism firmly, whilst defending our democratic values ​​as a country and as a people. I spoke this morning with the Minister of Defense, and I welcomed halting the process that could have led to an unthinkable separation between bus lines for Jews and Arabs.

"As one who loves the Land of Israel, I have nothing but regret for the discordant voices that we heard this morning, supporting the separation between Jews and Arabs on the basis of ideas that have no place being heard or said.  Such statements go against the very foundations of the State of Israel, and impact upon our very ability to establish here a Jewish and democratic state.  Such statements cause great damage to the State of Israel, and to the settlement movement.  It is important we remember that our sovereignty obligates us to prove our ability to live side by side."

Further details: Jason Pearlman, Foreign Media Advisor

^

What A Difference in Run-overs

Was this in anyway connected to today's terror incident when an Arab resident of Jerusalem ran over two Border Policewomen?

Police officers on Tuesday afternoon shot and wounded a man who accelerated a vehicle in their direction, a spokesman said.  The shooting happened in the parking lot.  They were conducting an investigation when "a suspect accelerated his vehicle in the direction of two of the officers," according to a spokesman.  Both officers opened fire, wounding the suspect. The man, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was taken to a hospital.

Nope.

The genuine story:

Federal agents on Tuesday afternoon shot and wounded a man who accelerated a vehicle in their direction outside a West Palm Beach furniture store, a spokesman said.

The shooting happened in the parking lot of El Dorado Furniture at 1901 Okeechobee Blvd.

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations were conducting an investigation when "a suspect accelerated his vehicle in the direction of two of the agents," according to Nestor Yglesias, an agency spokesman.

Both agents opened fire, wounding the suspect. The man, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was taken to a hospital.

^

Operation Brainwash

Just received this:

Join Extend’s Summer Tour of the West Bank! (June 8-12th!)

Have you ever wanted to explore life in the West Bank first-hand? We are offering a chance to meet

Palestinian and Israeli civil society leaders, businessmen, educators, political leaders and activists,

learn their stories, and discover first-hand the touchstones of West Bank life.

Join Extend on its upcoming tour of the West Bank, this June 8-12.

Extend, a non-profit organization offering highly-subsidized tours of the West Bank for young

Jewish Americans, warmly welcomes you on our next tour of the West Bank, this June 8-12th. Join

us as we visit Palestinian families, as well as historic, cultural and religious sites on a journey that

will deepen your understanding of life in the West Bank and in particular, will offer insights into

Palestinian perspectives on the conflict.

Open-minded, enthusiastic American Jewish college students of all political perspectives, eager to

get into deep conversations with people of myriad perspectives, are encouraged to apply.

The cost of the 5-day program is $300.

And here is a Sample Itinerary

Day 1: Jerusalem
Morning: Visit to All For Peace Radio Station, award-winning joint Israeli-Palestinian radio initiative.
Early afternoon: Visit to the Austrian Hospice for a chat with a filmmaker and Ph.D student in George Mason's conflict resolution program, on how to reconcile dueling Israeli-Palestinian narratives on the conflict.
Late afternoon: Walking tour of East Jerusalem with a Palestinian resident of the city. The walk explores the complex politics of the city, divided Arab-Jewish neighborhoods, and home demolitions.
Day 2: Hebron and Bethlehem
Morning: Tour of Hebron with Breaking the Silence, an organization that offers tours of the West Bank led by former IDF soldiers with a critical perspective on Israeli policy in the West Bank.
Late afternoon: Meeting with the English-language spokesperson for the Hebron settler movement and a tour of the Hebron settlement.
Evening: Dinner in Bethlehem with a former Palestinian combatant and member of Hands of Peace.
Day 3: Gush Etzion
Morning: Trail walk through the hills outside of Bethlehem with a settler disciple of Rabbi Froman, a rabbi committed to achieving peace between settlers and Palestinians. During the trail walk participants discuss the Jewish and Palestinian connection to the land.
Early afternoon: Tour of villages within the Gush Etzion settlement. Introductions to a wide array of settlers.
Evening: Dinner outside Ramallah with Palestinian peace activists at a Palestinian home.
Day 4: Nabi Saleh and Bi'lin
Morning: Nabi Saleh: Visit a family in this small village that is at the heart of the protest movement, and learn about the village's weekly protest and tensions with nearby settlements.
Afternoon: Bi'lin: Meet a number of local activists in this village and learn about the nonviolent protests that culminated in an Israeli high court decision to reroute the Wall.
Evening: Discussion with former PA officials on negotiating policy, divides within Palestinian society, and more.
Day 5: Ramallah, South Hebron hills, Jerusalem
Morning: Conference with international lawyers from Military Court Watch on the West Bank legal system. Visits to Palestinian families who have gone through the legal system.
Afternoon: Meeting with prominent Palestinian businessmen on their ideal economic relationship to Israel.
Evening: The tour concludes once everyone has been deposited in Jerusalem!

Everything seems quite clear except whether the "former PA officials" also were terrorists, or are.


(thanks to JN)

__________________________---

Zionist youth movement involvement.

^

The First Settlement Swap?

Following the Man of YamhadSettlement and Territory at Old Babylonian Alalah
Jacob Lauinger, The Johns Hopkins University
€162,00     $210.00

Legal texts recording the purchase or exchange of entire settlements are among the most important cuneiform tablets discovered at Old Babylonian/Middle Bronze Age (Level VII) Alalah. Following the Man of Yamhad is the first book-length study of these legal texts and the socio-economic practice that they document. The author explores the nature of the alienated settlements, the rights enjoyed by their owners, the underlying system of land tenure, and the larger political context in which the transactions occurred. The study is supported by extensive collations and up-to-date editions of relevant legal and administrative texts. Its conclusions will be of interest to anyone working on the history, society, and economy of the Bronze Age Near East.

Who knew?

^ 

Darn That Danino

Back in November, we learned that Israel's

Police chief won’t let any more MKs on Temple Mount

He explained that

...behavior [going to the Temple Mount] — even by MKs — can endanger public safety and security

and, therefore, despite MKs' immunity, he will not allow such 'behavior'.

We learned, further that the head of the national police, Yochanan Danino,

singled out MKs whose visits to the site have been accompanied by posts on social media...these lawmakers’ intentions were to “provoke and make remarks about changing the law on the Temple Mount [that allows Jewish visitors but bars them from praying there], which is exploited by [Muslim] extremists as a sign of a changing status quo.”

So, you would presume only Jews wish to alter the status quo.

But here can see MK Ahmed Tibi on the Mount - via social media even -

and he is demanding a Muslim-only approach (hear him here).

Isn't that campaigning for the altering of the status quo?

I can only presume that the pro-Mulsim status quo is even more sacred than the Temple Mount's sanctity for the Jews or the lawful right of Jews to pray there.

And that being so, I can further presume that Danino prefers even more anti-Jewish incitement by Muslim Arabs, supported by a MK, rather than the protection of Jewish rights.

That is a very sorry state of affairs.

I would have suggested Danino go back to bed but I feel that would unfairly implicate him in other police activity.

^

Is Netanyahu Down In the Dumps?

It started in 1996, then the owner of the store over the basement was abducted under orders of Arafat, who was asked by Egypt's Mubarak to persuade him to give basement to Copts but he refused, was then referred to as a Subterranean volcano in 2009 and by 2010, we were updated about the ownership of a long-forgotten medieval cellar that for centuries has been filled with rubbish.

The basics:

The cellar, which dates to at least the 12th century, lies in Jerusalem, and is claimed by both a Palestinian Muslim shopkeeper and Egyptian Coptic Christians who have responsibility over part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity's holiest site.

The legal battle over the centuries-old vaulted stone cellar has been festering for 14 years...Antonios al-Orshaleme, general secretary of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, insists the basement is holy ground and was once part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered by most Christians as the site where Jesus Christ was crucified and buried.

...The church was built in the fourth century. Its destruction seven centuries later provided an impetus for the Crusades. It was rebuilt in 1048 following agreement between the Byzantine Empire and the region's Muslim rulers.  "Here is a monastery, below is also a monastery," says Orshaleme.

Not so, says lawyer Reuven Yehoshua, who represents storekeeper Hazam Hirbawi. "For 800 years this cellar was used as a garbage dump," says Yehoshua.

And, basically, PM Binyamin Netanyahu may have to resolve it.

Why? 

Israel court stumped by holy row over property near Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The owner is dead but his son and his Israeli lawyers keep on.

This week, a report (in Hebrew) indicates the decision was that thee cellar belongs to ... Hirbawi.

And you thought the Temple Mount was the only troublesome holy site?


(thanks to RH)
^

When July Becomes June

In Muslim countries, July 4th will be a month early this year:

Ramadan will be starting June 18th and ending mid-July.

^

Vatican To Lose Mount Zion?

The Vatican will be recognizing some entity that calls itself the 'state of Palestine'.

If it ever thought that after years of negotiations it will now obtain more than just a right of access to the Cenacle on Mount Zion, a revered Jewish site, I think that's a no.

Or that should be a no.

___________

In 1537, Jews managed to expell the Franciscans from the site, which was a Jewish synagogue, after they took it over in the early 14th century.

^

A Thanksgiving

I attended the thanksgiving celebration of Yehuda Glick, donated by the Terasa Restaurant, last night at the Begin Center:

with friends

From Arutz 7's report:

and from Channel 2's report:

^

Are Biblical Prayers Permissible?

And now, Qurei is condemning the "storming of Al-Aqsa" and the "performance of Talmudic prayers"

If we perform Biblical prayers, is that okay?

But, of course, using the term "Talmudic" is anti-Semitic.

Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Affairs Department Jerusalem Ahmed Qurei warned of the risks and repercussions of the storming by a radical settler groups to the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque through the Mughrabi Gate, heavily protected and enhanced by special units of the Israeli occupation police, who do many tours and violations.

He stressed the seriousness of the attempt settler extremist perform Talmudic prayers  on the cusp of the series door inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in a provocative step to the feelings of Muslim worshipers, describing it extremism and blunt aggression on Al-Aqsa and the holy sites in Jerusalem, with the aim of desecration, and the imposition of policy the status quo and make a normal intrusion process, all the way to give these extremists an opportunity to establish prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

...He held the Israeli government fully responsible, what is going on in the city of Jerusalem from the daily violations of continuous incursions consecutive Al-Aqsa Mosque and to provide support and protection to the settlers and extremists by the extreme Israeli right-wing government to carry out incursions

And he formulated with Shimon Peres the Oslo Accords as a 'moderate'.

^

Second Temple Recognition

Well, one should be thankful even for little things:

The third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is also venerated as Judaism's most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood.

Following Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has maintained an agreement with the Islamic trust that controls the Al-Aqsa compound not to allow non-Muslim prayer in the area.

Jewish prayer is allowed at the neighboring Western Wall, which is the last remnant of the Second Temple.

However, Israeli forces regularly escort Jewish visitors to Al-Aqsa, leading to anger among Muslim worshipers.

At least they acknowledge that denying the Temple is stupid and silly.

^ 

Looking for Kabni or Kotin

From the JTA report:

21 Jews Slain in Tiberias Massacre, Worst Since ’29; Synagogue, Homes Razed
October 4, 1938
An invasion of ancient Tiberias on the shore of the Galilee, in which at least 21 Jews — including an American citizen and his wife — were massacred by an Arab band wielding bomb, rifle and torch, sent a wave of indignation surging through Jewish Palestine today. The massacre was the worst since the Hebron onslaught in 1929.

While the Government clamped a 22-hour curfew on the town and searches of ruined houses went ahead — an official communique predicting that more victims would probably be found in the debris – troops pursued the arab band and was reported to have contacted it at Lubia village.

...The attack was launched at nine o’clock last night, according to the official account, when an armed band entered Tiberias in two parties, from the north and from the south. They cut telephone lines, then, at a signal of shrill whistles from the hills around the town, began to shoot...Two of the Jewish victims were not immediately found. The others were as follows:

Joshua Ben-Arieh, his wife, Shoshanah, and a son, Arieh, stabbed and burned to death; another son, Moshe, one-and-a-half years old, shot dead.
Rivka Leimer, 10, and her brothers, Chaim, 12, and ezra, 8, stabbed and burned to death. Both families were in the Ben-Arieh house at the time of the attack.
Rachel Mizrachi, 26, and her five children, Ezra, Miriam, Yochebed, Samuel and Hephzibah, aged 12, 5, 3, 2 and I, respectively, killed while the father, Shimon Yochanan Mizrachi, was on guard duty in a distant part of the city.
Menachem Kabni, an American citizen, and his wife stabbed and burned to death. His sister escaped. what part of the United States Kabni came from was not ascertained immediately.
Ezekiel Katz, 42, killed when the synagogue was burned down.
Two Jewish constables, Israel Bookman and Zvi Chatzkelevitz, killed during the shooting, and also Jacob Gross.

Anyone have knowledge of the Kabni family?

_________________________

UPDATE

...the Arabs broke in and stabbed and burned to death Mr. Kabin [an elderly American Jew who had recently come to Palestine] and his sister...

More: seems from Davar newspaper of Oct. 4, the name is Kotin or Kutin:

and he arrived four years previously and was a synagogue gabbai.


After a further search, seems for sure Kotin and not Kabani.  From the Palestine Post, October 4:

^

Giuditta Riva and International Law

I spotted this exchange in a recent Haaretz column of Liat Elkayam, 'Departures | Arrivals':

Giuditta [Riva]: It’s so easy to connect with Israelis. There are hardly any walls here between people, apart from the one in the territories…

 a 2008 snap

Do I detect a bit of political criticism here?I want to make it clear that I understand perfectly how easy it is for foreigners like me to come to Israel and be critical of the political situation. In Italy, no one has a reason to be afraid of taking a bus or going to church. It’s easy to be tolerant and respectful of human rights when your children aren’t risking their lives.

Are human rights a subject close to your heart?A week ago I completed my master’s degree in law, specializing in international law. When I was here last time, it was to write my thesis.

About Israel?The application of human rights in the occupied territories – a very complex subject.

Tell me about itOverall, I think there is a line that runs between good and bad, and sometimes that line snaps and it’s impossible to know who’s good and who’s bad. On paper, Israel is violating international law in a number of ways, but I understand why a state will do all it can to protect its citizens. My thesis is about international law, according to which – and this is the accepted belief in international courts – Palestine is occupied, and human rights and international law apply there. The Israeli opinion, which has no legal basis, is that the Geneva Convention is inapplicable in the territories, because Palestine is neither a state nor is it a territory under Israeli jurisdiction. But everyone has human rights, it’s not a matter of geographical boundaries.

Is there anyone on Israel’s side in this issue?The United States. In Guantanamo, the U.S. put forward exactly the same argument: that Guantanamo is extraterritorial and therefore the Geneva Convention does not apply.

How do we move ahead?There are many possibilities, but from a legal standpoint it’s first of all a theoretical question: Should humanitarian law and human rights be applied in Palestine?

What’s the answer?That Israel is not doing it, but should.

I think there are some basic errors in Ms. Riva's presentation.

First of all, the main reason why Israel rejects the full application of the Geneva Convention is that that treaty is between "High Contracting Parties".  The definition of high contracting parties is, simply, the representatives of states who have signed or ratified a treaty, and quite specifically states.

"Palestine", or the "Arab state" as originally envisioned by the UN's 1947 Partition Plan recommendation, never existed and certainly did not in 1967.  UN Resolution 242 refers to "member states" and "states in the area", which 'Palestine' was not.  There was no High Contracting Party that controlled those territories legally.

Second, Israel actually does apply humanitarian law to the administered territories of the Palestine Mandate not under Israeli sovereignty.  Here is an opponent of Israel admitting:

the Israeli government has consistently contested that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable de jure to the situation prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it does nevertheless accept a de facto application of what it calls the ‘humanitarian provisions’ of the Convention. Moreover, the Israeli Supreme Court has clarified that certain provisions of the Convention as well as the rules of the 1907 Hague Regulations reflect customary IHL and are therefore binding on the authorities in the territories

Another formulation of Israel's position is here:

Israel ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1951. In principle, Israel rejects the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as it considers those territories as captured in 1967 as the result of a defensive war against countries that had illegally occupied them in 1948...the governments of Israel had undertaken to act in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the Israeli High Court of Justice considered that Israel holds the Palestinian territories by virtue of belligerent occupation.

In other words, there is an argument about the political aspects of the administration of Judea and Samaria but not as regards any and all strictly humanitarian responsibilities. And by 'political', it is taken to be the means to achieve an eventual resolution of the conflict and what that final resolution will reflect on Jewish rights, including the right of residence.  The counter-argument to Israel's position is expressed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, for example, is that the establishment of Jewish communities and villages and towns in Judea and Samaria, and in Gaza until 2005, is a policy that

amounts to a violation of IHL, in particular the provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting the transfer of part of the population of the Occupying Power – in this case Israeli citizens – to the occupied territory.

That approach is ridiculous in that it ignores the provision of the League of Nations which guaranteed, in those very territories, the right of "close settlement on the land" or, as I noted, the right of Jewish residence.

As a less-than-sympathetic Israel scholar wrote

the chorus of recriminations against Israeli settlements disregards the (by no means trivial) segment of settlements in the West Bank, undertaken by Israeli nationals individually – at times, on private land owned by Jews since the days of the British Mandate...or on parcels of private land purchased for full market value from those having title to it – without any financial or other sponsorship from the Israeli Government (indeed, in not a few instances, against the official policy of the Government). When settlers act entirely on their own initiative, when they do not arrogate to themselves land belonging to others or expropriated from its rightful owners, and when they do not benefit from any overt or covert governmental inducement,

 Thirdly, in not seeking the full implementation of humanitarian law to Jews in those areas, the international community is derelict in its neutrality.  In the first place, Jordan's illegal occupation was ignored.  In the second place, other ongoing illegal occupations in Morocco, Tibet, Cyprus, etc. are ignored.  And in the third place, Jews lived in those territories for centuries and were ethnically cleansed, in many cases through extreme violence, pogroms and massacres, but the world that wages battle against Israel in forums using 'international law' are blind to those Jewish rights.

A fuller discussion of Israel's legal rights in Judea and Samaria I listed here.

If she wants to visit me, she's more than welcome.

^

Circumcision Can Prevent Crime

You don't believe that circumcision can prevent crime?

Here

BEIJING - Railway police revealed on Thursday they captured a man who hid a bag of heroin under his foreskin on a train from the capital to Lhasa in Tibet , The Mirror reports...The man later confessed to having illegal drugs on him and took out a plastic bag from under his foreskin.

Circumcision provides a crime pull-back?

^ 

Wines from Binyamin Region

Guess what?

ESHKOL HAZAHAV
May 5, 2015
Israel’s premier wine tasting competition
The winners of this year’s Eshkol Hazahav (Golden Cluster), were announced at The Peres Center For Peace in Jaffa...Two hundred and fifty nine wines were sent in from fifty-six wineries, to be tasted blind by panels of experts. These included winemakers, sommeliers, wine critics and wine connoisseurs.

The surprise of the evening was Shiloh Winery...Shiloh won an outstanding four Gold Medal Trophies, all of them red wines...

The Gold Medal Trophies, (first place), were awarded to the following wines:

RED BLENDS (NIS 90-120)
Legend, Shiloh 2012
Legend 2, Shiloh 2011

CABERNET SAUVIGNON (More than NIS 100)
Sod Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiloh 2012

MERLOT (More than NIS 100)
Sod Merlot, Shiloh 2011

Oh, and 

MERLOT (Less than NIS 100)
Psagot Merlot 2013

But the venue of the Peres Center was, well, satisfying.

^

Left - In

Maya Kornberg, writing in Ynet, is upset.

She informs us that the

Israeli left has been plagued by dire branding issues for years; to regain people's support, it must find a way into nation's hearts.

and she opens so

March 17th 2015. One day before the election. An Israeli living in Tel Aviv drives to work through the major Ayalon highway. She stops at the intersection. On either side of the intersection she sees two posters, looming over and exhorting her like the angel and devil on either side.

and then describes her emotional response and, she supposes, of all the "left":

“It’s Us or the Left” declares the Likud poster. Netanyahu looks down with a gaze that conveys the gravity of the threat. “The left,” are bad and dangerous. “We” are the answer. On the other side of the street, Livni and Herzog stare down at the driver, in a poster that asserts, “It’s Us or Him.” “He”, Netanyahu, is bad and dangerous. “We” are the answer.

But who are “we”? Herzog? Livni? The Labor party? The left? The signs typify the central problem of the Israeli left. While Netanyahu’s sign defines left as the enemy, the Labor sign shies away, fearful of branding itself as left. Because what is the modern Israeli left?

Of course, that poster could have been messaging that there are bad policies which are mistakenly adopted by people who are either naive, incredulous, messianically-devoted to peace as an ultimate value (rather than security, for example) or people who have been educated wrongly.

That's what I think.  I try not to personalize my criticism unless, after personal experience, my conclusion is that the person consistently ignores facts, corrections and/or really expresses bias and hate based on ideological motivation or irrational prejudice.

Maybe those who consider themselves "left" should reconsider the way they are seen to be able to be viewed differently and even better.

Then, instead of being left out, they'll be left in.

^

Punch Out Counterpunch

Here's on snippet from a piece in the far-out left Counterpunch:

In 1948, Jewish residents of Palestine who had recently migrated to the region from Europe unilaterally announced the creation of a Jewish state when a UN partition plan to create Israel without the Palestinians having any voice in the process was not implemented.

a.  there were Jews who had immigrated centuries ago there, too.  and Jews from dozens of countries from several continents.

b. one reason many were recent was because it was only in 1922 that international recognition was awardd that would assur the right to immigrate as the Ottoman Empire that ruled since 1516 was not favorably disposed to Jews.

c.  the partition plan was not simply "not implemented" but rejected by the Arabs who then, on the morrow initiated violence.

d. Arabs surely did have a voice in the process and participatd in all meetings and sessions of all doplomatic efforts to resolve issus then and ever since 1920 (and before).

Now you know why you shouldn't trust this organ or its contributors.

^

At What Time Do You Decide?

Wait until the end:

Dr. Sophie Turner-Zaretsky (born Selma Schwarzwald) is the daughter of Laura (Litwak) and Daniel Schwarzwald...Selma's mother had studied economics at the Lvov Academy of Commerce before her marriage. During World War II the Schwarzwalds remained in Lvov through the Soviet occupation.
Following the German invasion in June 1941, Daniel obtained a job as a guard in a hostel for Organization Todt construction workers. In November 1941 the family was forced into the Lvov ghetto, along with Laura's parents, Josef and Mina Litwak, and three of her siblings, Emanuel, Adela, and Fryda. (A fourth sibling, Edek Litwak, had immigrated in the early 1930s to Palestine, where he died of typhus in 1935.) Through the window of their room in the ghetto, which overlooked Janowska Street, Laura observed the deportations of Jews from the city. It was a Polish landlady who first suggested to the Schwarzwalds that Laura and Selma flee from the ghetto and seek refuge in a Polish resort town. She even supplied them with a Christian Bible and prayer book to give them cover. Daniel then started making efforts to secure false documents for them. He purchased a birth certificate for Selma and a marriage document for Laura. In addition, he found false papers for Adela and Fryda Litwak. In August 1942 Josef and Mina Litwak were rounded up and deported to Belzec. By this time the ghetto was nearly empty, and Daniel decided that his wife and child must leave at once. Before they could do so, however, Daniel was caught up in an action that took place on September 1 at the headquarters of the Jewish council. On that day the entire membership of the Judenrat was rounded up and hanged in reprisal for the death of a German soldier. Daniel tried to escape from the building by jumping out of the window, but he was shot and killed.
The three Litwak siblings decided that Laura and Selma would be the first to leave the ghetto. They did so on September 6. With the assistance of a Pole, who subsequently stole their luggage, Laura and Selma boarded a train for Krakow. Adela and Fryda managed to reach Krakow soon afterwards, but Emanuel was arrested at the Lvov train station and later executed. At first Laura and Selma, who were living under the aliases of Bronislawa and Zofia Tymejko, had difficulty finding a place to live and a means of support. But ultimately Laura found a job in a German bank. She worked there only for a short time, however, before moving to the resort town of Busko Zdroj, where she was hired by an SS officer named Leming to be a bookkeeper at the Regional Agricultural Mercantile Cooperative. Later, she also tutored local Polish children in German and Latin, though this was illegal. She and Selma lived in a small rented room with a kitchen. Laura's sister Adela joined them in December 1944 after having worked for two years as a governess in Krakow. Her other sister, Fryda, volunteered for forced labor in Germany after working in a pharmacy in Bochnia for a time. In the summer of 1944 she was working in Gelsenkirchen near Mainz, where she was killed in an Allied bombing raid. In the course of her life in hiding in Busko Zdroj, Selma completely adopted her Polish Catholic identity. She attended church and celebrated her First Communion after the liberation in 1945.

After the war the Schwarzwalds remained in Busko Zdroj until a local pogrom convinced Laura that it was time to leave Poland.

I'm A Centrist

I took the quiz:

^

R & R - Complimenting Journalists

Barak Ravid, who loathes Binyamin Netanyahu, despises right-wing politics and is Haaretz's diplomatic correspondent who many feel makes up stories, compliments the New York Times' head of bureau, Jodi Rudoren.

Here:

Need I add any commentary?

^

Throwing Dirt in Our Eyes

The outlandish claims promoted by Arabs to subvert the historical record and thus supplant it with a false narrative of 'Palestinianism' have also touched on my home community.

Here is Ahmad Melhem, a journalist and photographer based in Ramallah for Al-Watan News:-

Since 1967, Israel has been fiercely attacking these archaeological sites. It has established several settlements like the Shilo settlement, built over 'Khirbet Ceylon,' a Canaanite city and archaeological site, north of Ramallah,

First, that should be Seilun, which an Arab phonetic approximation for ... Shiloh.  That is specially humorous in light of his claim that

Israel resorts to biblical tales, like the exodus from Egypt and the journey to Palestine, for instance, and changes the names of archaeological Canaanite, Byzantine and Islamic sites to biblical names.

Second, if anyone is destroying sites of archaeological importance with the purpose of obliterating another people's cultural and religious history it is Muslims at, for example, the Temple Mount, not to mention what is being done in Iraq and other places.

Third, as I have been documenting, we have been uncovering, extensively, the archaeological remains and artifacts of all the layers of Shiloh's history, including the periods of Arab/Muslim rule in the area of the Jewish national homeland.

Fourth, the Quran itself relates "biblical tales" as truth.

Is there an Arab word for chutzpah?  I think I asked about that already.


(thanks to RH)

^

Roman Crap

Greg Woolf deals with Roman Filth in a review of ‘The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy’ by Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow writes

...the Romans did nothing to improve public health, according to Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow in “The Archaeology of Sanitation,” an oddly passionate account of the toilets and sewers of Roman Italy. In a book packed with dense archaeological detail on every variant of Roman loo, we are conducted around Pompeii and Herculaneum with their hundreds of domestic latrines, almost none connected to the sewer system. We are treated to accounts of Koloski-Ostrow’s own explorations of the cloaca maxima, Rome’s Great Drain, wide enough to drive wagons of hay along according to Strabo....

And that reminded me of this, found in Tractate Shabbat 33b on the Roman occupiers of Eretz-Yisrael: 

For R. Judah, R. Jose, and R. Simeon were sitting, and Judah, a son of proselytes, was sitting near them. R. Judah commenced [the discussion] by observing, ‘How fine are the works of this people! They have made streets, they have built bridges, they have erected baths.’ R. Jose was silent. R. Simeon b. Yohai answered and said, ‘All that they made they made for themselves; they built market-places, to set harlots in them; baths, to rejuvenate themselves; bridges, to levy tolls for them.’ 

^

Yes YAS

Batya Ungar-Sargon posted this

The Nonviolent Palestinian Activists Working for Peace in the West Bank

on May 3, 2015.

She is described here as a freelance writer who lives in New York.  And here as a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who teaches at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice and she seems to be a staff writer at Tablet Magazine and describes herself as a Recovering Academic, Award-winning Journalist, Aspiring Detective Novelist, Flip-flopper.


The leader of the group she is covering, ‘Youth Against Settlements’, coordinator rather, is Issa Amro who she describes so

a man with intense, close-set eyes, a ready smile, and an air of concentrated power

Hadar Sela has written of a fuller 

range of Amro’s activities, his International Solidarity Movement links (apparently including financial arrangements) and his organisation’s connections – all of which are necessary to view his statements in their appropriate political perspective.”

The last article on them at +972 is 14-months old.  Their Facebook page is more up-to-date. They are 'media trained'.

YAS actually complements the regular "popular resistance" struggle which is analyzed here. An excerpt:

The popular resistance is a strategy implemented on the ground in Judea and Samaria and integrated into the political, economic, propaganda and judicial campaigns currently being waged by the PA against Israel. As far as the PA and Fatah are concerned, the popular resistance is used to maintain constant, controlled tension in Palestinian relations with Israel...the popular resistance [is] an acceptable alternative to Hamas' "armed resistance" which the PA and Fatah feel is not, at the present time, useful in the Palestinian struggle against Israel.

...the popular resistance is not the placid, non-violent protest the PA pretends it is. It makes massive use of violence employing cold weapons, mainly involving the frequent throwing of Molotov cocktails and stones, and sporadic stabbing and vehicular attacks...The scope of the popular resistance has increased in recent months, although the popular resistance has not yet turned into a mass uprising. Occasionally the popular resistance claims casualties (killed and wounded) among Israeli civilians and soldiers, as well as Palestinians...

and this

In July 2013 Sarah Ali, a pro-Palestinian Canadian activists of Pakistani extraction was deported from Israel for her involvement in attacking an Israeli policewoman in Hebron. She was a volunteer activist in "Youth Against Settlements" (Ma'an News Agency, July 21, 2013). 

She quotes one member as saying

"It's not our way. We at Youth Against Settlements don't throw stones. Not for them. For us."

But the telling point is

 Youth Against Settlements partners with Breaking the Silence to make videos

^

To The Attention of Peter Beinart

Seems Peter Beinart is but an echo chamber:

Lamentations of Youth: The Diaries of Gershom Scholem, 1913-1919, p. 324

And this conclusion from a new book:

The narrative pleads with the reader to resist the temptation of escapism and normalization, and rather than ignore the decline of spiritual Zionism, to look again at exilic life as an alternative to Zionism and national redemption...

and

...For Scholem, responsibility for the collapse of the spiritual dream lay mostly on the shoulders of the followers of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the “climbers on the iron wall” – an allusion to Jabotinsky’s article from 1923 calling on his right-wing followers to erect a figurative iron wall that would separate Jews and Arabs. Zadoff ties this critique back to a letter to his friend Werner Kraft, in which Scholem wrote: “Metaphysically, we lost in the Land of Israel the battle that Zionism won in the world.”

This last quote demonstrates Scholem’s more general understanding of Zionism. In another letter he admitted: “It does not matter anymore, how we interpret Zionism, after its face has been revealed (and now is the time of decision, we cannot disillusion ourselves any longer), even when it is turned against itself, like the face of the Gorgon.”

Of course, the 'Iron Wall' was not a matter of simple separation but of self-defense.  No one more than Jabotinsky sought coexistence, cooperation and civility with the Arab minority.

The stupidity of intellectuals.

^

GraphicZionism: Wrong-turn Cliffhanger

^

The Spoils Go to the Victor

Who won last summer's Operation Protective Edge?

Well, one indication, of many,:-

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Palestinians from the Gaza Strip headed to Jerusalem Friday to perform prayers in the Al-Aqsa mosque.  Sources at the Palestinian liaison told Ma'an that 200 Gazans above the age of 60 headed to Jerusalem via the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip.

Sources added that after performing prayers the 200 head back to the Gaza Strip Friday afternoon.  Weekly access to the Al-Aqsa mosque by Gazans has become routine since October 2014 when some 500 Palestinians in Gaza prayed at the mosque for the first time since 2007, having been prevented by Israel from traveling to Jerusalem since that time.  The decision to allow Gazans to travel to Al-Aqsa was reached as part of the ceasefire deal between Palestinian militant groups and Israel that ended the more than 50-day war

Can Jews pray at the Temple Mount?  Can they visit the ancient Jewish synagogue in the Gaza District?

Well, what do you say about who won?

^